By Michael H. Brown

A remote Indian village on a reservation five hundred miles from a major city in the Canadian province of Manitoba is reporting visitations from Jesus and the Blessed Mother.

The community, St. Theresa Point, a reservation for Ojibwa-Cree Indians, allegedly has been encountering the phenomena since 2003 -- when an eight-year-old boy said he had seen Jesus form in a light. The community is accessible only by small aircraft or during winter an ice road.

"I was there when it actually started," says his uncle, Eugene Wood, who is involved with law enforcement at the reservation. "His name is Michael. Early one morning he saw a light coming in his window and out of the light came a figure. He didn't know who it was. He tried to wake up his parents but they told him to go back to sleep."

According to Wood, the figure seemed to be Jesus, who the boy described as wearing a white shirt and red "blanket," with long hair, a beard, and a luminosity over His chest; later the boy, whose parents weren't especially devout, identified the figure he saw with a picture he was shown of the Sacred Heart.

The Lord, according to the boy, asked him "to pray and to teach other people to pray," especially "from the heart."

Though Indian -- and without a regular resident priest -- the community is "99.9 percent" Catholic.

They are taking a cautious approach to the apparitions -- aware that deceptions occur and instructed to watch for fruits by a priest who counseled them; the local bishop has not expressed an interest. But the events continue to reverberate through the community of 3,500. "There is nothing else Michael can talk about," Woods told Spirit Daily. "He said the first day he was going to become a priest, and he still wants to be a priest. He said he will grow old and save souls."

According to Wood, Jesus appears "unpredictably" -- sometimes giving the boy messages in dreams, sometimes as a corporeal, full-bodied apparition, seen with the eyes (as opposed to interiorly) in an alert state of consciousness.

A major theme of the messages is that people have strayed from prayer and God. The boy was told that we should pray from the heart and "not cheat on your prayers."

The Blessed Mother began appearing several days after the Lord but said nothing, according to Eugene. Sometimes she came in pure white, other times in blue and white with a sash around her waist.

Wood says the boy "knows something about God's plan [for the world] but he's keeping that secret."

"Recently the boy received visits from Our Blessed Mother holding a chalice and a Host," Eugene had reported last spring. "He also witnessed the Passion and described the suffering and wounds of Our Lord. He was instructed to bring more souls to Him. Most recently, he had an early-morning visit from an angel who told him that God's Plan will occur soon."

Once, it is asserted, the Lord said the Pope would appear and the boy saw him in vision in the church.

Thirteen days after the first apparitions, a second village youngster claimed to see the Blessed Mother and a Cross in the sky. Was it the power of suggestion?

At least five children have alleged phenomena along with a similar number of adults. Before his death, the famed Father Slavko Barbaric from Medjugorje visited.

After the first reports, many villagers created home shrines and there have been exuding pictures and statues, along with the mysterious aroma of roses and -- it is claimed -- Holy Water turning into oil. St. Michael, other angels, St. Joseph, St. Theresa, and numerous saints have been claimed, along with sun phenomena.

The manifestations began around the same time as mysterious images began to appear at equally remote Native American places in the province of  Saskatchewan, including  Ile-a-la-Crosse and Fond-du-Lac, where Mary appeared on windows.

And so we attempt to discern. Is it real? If it is actual phenomena, is it of God?

The village has often suffered from suicide and violence. Was this why the Lord came -- if it is the Lord, if there is actual phenomena? Something does seem to have occurred. It is a village converted.

That would be the main fruit, if in the end the outbreak proves authentic.