Cloistered Nun Who Spent 86 Years In Monastery Dies In Spain At Age 105

Sister Teresita Barajuen spent the majority of her life in the monastery. In fact, the cloistered nun spent 86 years at the Buenafuente del Sistal in northeast Madrid.

Sister Maria Romero, the abbess of the monastery, announced the sad news today that Barajuen had passed away. She was 105-years-old.

According to Fox News, the cloistered nun spent more time (86 years!) inside the monastery than any other nun.

As a cloistered nun, Barajuen rarely saw the outside world. Sister Romero said that Barajuen entered the monastery when she was 19-years-old and spent the majority of her life within the confines of Buenafuente del Sistal. In 2011, she left the monastery for the first time in 40 years to meet Benedict XVI during a papal visit to Madrid.

In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI praised monastic communities saying that silence is needed to communicate with god.

The pope said: “Silence is the environmental condition most conducive to contemplation, to listening to God and to meditation. The very fact of enjoying silence and letting ourselves be “filled”, so to speak, with silence, disposes us to prayer … The silence and beauty of the place in which the monastic community dwells — a simple and austere beauty — are like a reflection of the spiritual harmony which the community itself seeks to create.”