The cross which is made from the wood of the original school at Penola, South Australia, where Mary and Father Julian Tenison Woods started the Sisters of Saint Joseph’s of the Sacred Heart.

The cross has travelled the state since August 8.

The Knights of the Southern Cross organised the pilgrimage which included Glen Innes where Mary MacKillop spent some time in her early years.

In 1986 the Knights of the Southern Cross in New South Wales organised a pilgrimage to 12 dioceses in south-east Australia. The aim was to lobby the bishops to pursue the canonisation of Mary MacKillop.

Bishops were contacted in the archdioceses of Sydney and Melbourne and the dioceses of Wollongong, Parramatta, Broken Bay, Bathurst, Wagga Wagga, Sale, Ballarat, and Port Pirie as well as the Military Ordinariate.

Bishop De Campo of Port Pirie saw the pilgrims in the Dominican Convent in Franklin Street, Adelaide. in the very room of Mary MacKillop’s ex-communication.

The pilgrimage took in Penola and mass was said in the Church of St Joseph in Penola.

The Knights of the Southern Cross in Penola had ‘resurrected’ the timbers of the floor of the first Woods/MacKillop school-house when a new floor was laid.

The local branch sent four pieces from the resurrected timbers to Sydney - two were nine feet long and two were four feet six inches long.

Two crosses were made and a member of the NSW Knights of the Southern Cross then French-polished the crosses.

The first cross was the gift of the Archdiocese of Sydney to His Holiness Pope John Paul II and was presented during the Randwick Mass in 1986.

The second Cross was for St Mary’s Cathedral, and used again for the 1995 Beatification ceremonies.

For some time this cross was mislaid but was found in December last year and was refurbished.

At a Mass on December 8, last year, the cross was carried in the Entrance Procession at the midday mass in the Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel at North Sydney after which it was presented to the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.