From Spanish daily ABC:
Sr. Teresita has spent 84 of her 103 years within the walls of the cloistered convent [monastery] of Buenafuente del Sistal (Guadalajara) [Castille-La Mancha, Spain], which gives her the right to be considered as one of unbreakable faith. A member of the Cistercian order, and a superior for over 20 years, Sr. Teresita will break her record of permanence inside an enclosed monastery to be received by Pope Benedict XVI for World Youth Day.
This religious woman, a native of Foronda (Álava) [Basque Contry], received her habit on the same day on which Benedict XVI was born. She did not have an early vocation, but her father convinced her to be a nun, and her prayers to the Virgen Blanca [the White Virgin], the patron saint of Vitoria, gave her the strength to continue. "In order to please my father, I prayed to the Patron saint of Vitoria, and asked her to grant me vocation... And she surely gave it to me!", she declares in her book, "What does a girl like you do in a place like this?", in which she describes the lives of nine other cloistered religious women.
Her given name was Valeria, but she decided to change it for that of the saint who most helped her begin her life in the convent. "I was afraid to come in. But the Lord helped me. He, and Santa Teresita [Saint Therèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face]."
