Significance of The statue of Our Lady

The original statue from the shrine in the woods went missing during the war. One secret that Thérèse discovers at the end of the novel is that her mother hid the original statue under the pile of sand in the cellar. There is also a small statue of St. Bernadette in Thérèse's room. After Thérèse's vision, she asks the bishop to build a chapel in the woods. A new statue of the Virgin Mary is constructed, and at harvest festival time it is brought from the clearing to the church and taken in procession around the village.