Nun who spent record 86 years in monastery dies in Spain Sister Maria Romero, abbess of the Buenafuente del Sistal monastery northeast of Madrid said today that Sister Teresita Barajuen had died overnight. She was 105. She entered the Cistercian monastery when she was 19, the abbess said. Sister Barajuen acknowledged in interviews that like many young women at the time, she never intended being a nun but entered the monastery because of family pressure. In 2011, Sister Barajuen left the monastery for the first time in 40 years to meet retired Benedict XVI during a papal visit to Madrid. She had entered the monastery on the same day he was born.