Environment

From The Telegraph:

By Fiona Govan

For the last 84 years she has spent every day of her life behind the cloistered walls of a convent to the north of Madrid but on Friday Sister Teresita, aged 103, will venture into the world outside – to meet the Pope.

The sprightly centenarian has been confined within the convent of Buenafuente del Sistal since she took her vows as a 19 year old, two years before the Wall Street Crash.

By strange coincidence she entered the convent on April 16, 1927 – the day that Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was born in Germany.

Sister Teresita has remained at the convent ever since leaving its seclusion for only a few hours at a time during the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War when the nuns fled to escape the fighting.

But on Friday she will join a delegation to meet Pope Benedict during his three day visit to the Spanish capital to celebrate World Youth Day.

"She said she thinks she will make the trip with her eyes closed, so that nothing will distract her," said the convent's mother superior, Maria.

Sister Teresita was the subject of a book entitled "What is a girl like you doing in a place like that", which the author Jesus Garcia recounted the lives of 10 nuns in the convent,

"Who can spend 84 years in a convent without being happy? You feel happiness when you follow your vocation."

More than a million pilgrims have flooded in the capital for five days of events that began yesterday evening with a concert and will culminate on Sunday when the Pope celebrates an open air mass at an airfield in southwestern Madrid.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8704855/103-year-old-nun-to-leave-convent-for-first-time-in-84-years-to-meet-Pope.html