My first encounter with Will Pemberton was in December 1997 in the snowy wooded landscape of Combermere, Ontario. We were working at Madonna House, where the days were spent splitting firewood, shovelling snow, and peeling large amounts of vegetables. Only 18, he was the youngest of the male guests, but he was also among the most thoughtful and articulate. While the rest of us played cards or Scrabble during our moments of free time, Will usually played his violin, to himself or to whoever would listen. Music was just one of his many languages. I met Will again a few years later while visiting a seminary in British Columbia. It was the annual school concert, and rising from the sea of talent was the tall, ruddy man from Parry Sound. He led a schola in sacred polyphony and played some raucous folk songs on guitar, his melodious voice and booming laughter filling the gymnasium. He once told me that during seminary he decided to learn one Irish song per day for a whole year. Consequently
"Something strange is happening … there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear. He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying, “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you li