Judy Moss, age 14, of Charlotte, N.C., for her question:

WHERE IS LOURDES?

Lourdes is a small town in southwestern France near the Pyrenees foothills that is famous as a shrine for Roman Catholic pilgrims. It is believed that here in 1858 a peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous was visited by the Virgin Mary.

Two million pilgrims each year visit the shrine. The underground Basilica of St. Pius X was opened there in 1958 and is the second largest Roman Catholic church in the world. Only St. Peter's in Rome can accommodate more people.

Each year many of the visitors bathe in the sacred waters of the grotto spring in hope that a miracle will restore them to health. Many leave gifts and thousands have left their crutches as evidence of receiving cures.