Aremarkable pioneering educator will be remembered when the annual feast day Mass for St Mary MacKillop will be held this morning at St Joseph’s Church at Penola.

This town is significant for Australia’s first saint as this is where she adopted the religious life and co-founded the teaching order of the Sisters of St Joseph.

Her feast day will also be celebrated across the world including at three masses at St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral, Adelaide.

Meanwhile, a 2.7 metre high cross made from the floorboards of the first school established by St Mary MacKillop in Penola will be the centrepiece of the feast day mass today at St Joseph’s Chapel at Kensington in suburban Adelaide.

Constructed by the Penola branch of the Knights of the Southern Cross in 1986, the cross has been travelling around the Archdiocese as part of a pilgrimage marking the centenary of the Knights in South Australia.

The Southern Cross monthly Catholic newspaper has described the journey of the cross.

It is one of two crosses made by the Knights, the first of which was presented to Pope John Paul II during his outdoor Mass at Randwick Racecourse in November 1986.

The second was presented to Cardinal Edward Clancy, the then Archbishop of Sydney, and remained in Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral.

As part of the centenary pilgrimage of the Knights of the Southern Cross, the cross has been made available for veneration and pray in 13 parishes in the Adelaide Archdiocese.

Because of its size, the cross has been transported from parish to parish by Knights of the Southern Cross State deputy chair and Dernancourt branch member David Lloyd in a hearse provided by Blackwell Funerals, which also sponsored printed leaflets.

“It’s been quite the logistical exercise,” Mr Lloyd said.

“But all the parishes have been very pleased to be part of the pilgrimage.”

The cross will leave the Kensington chapel on August 12 for a week at the Rosary Church, Prospect.