Angels

And the glory of angels was all around. The Bible describes angels as being mediums of God’s power who execute God’s will, revealing themselves to individual humans and sometimes to a whole nation as on the night of Christ’s birth. For Lorraine Watkiss of La Crescenta, the first angel came to her one evening in the midst of great pain, according to her husband, John Watkiss. She witnessed a golden glow on the ceiling of her bedroom. The glow transformed into an angelic face, framed by an elaborate rose petal headdress.

Paul Andersen, Weekend GLENDALE -- When Glendale singer/songwriter Debra Davis was first approached by the producers of the Nashville Network's "Angel Encounters," it was about using one of her songs for the show's soundtrack. "They originally just wanted to use my song, 'Angels in the Attic,' " says Davis. "Then the director asked me about the reasons I wrote the song. I explained that it was about specific experiences I have had with people who were close to me and had passed on, and how they remained in touch with me while I wrote, sort of watching over me."

Lent runs from Ash Wednesday on Feb. 21 until the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday, April 5. Download the Cathedral Lent Schedule for the Cathedral Ash Wednesday Schedule and weekly Liturgical Events at www.olacathedral.org. Palm Sunday services are in English at 8 and 10 a.m., in Spanish and English at 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. The Lord's Passion will be read in English at the 2:30 p.m. service. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels is at 555 W. Temple St. in Los Angeles.

Hamlet Nalbandyan Nerves and intimidation. That pretty much sums up the emotions of the underdog in the Little League District 16 Tri-Cities Tournament. The 10-through 12-year-olds on Auto Body had a lot to be nervous and intimidated about in Tuesday's Major Baseball opener against Tujunga's No. 1 seed, the Angels. Facing a more experienced -- not to mention, much bigger -- team, the Vaquero Little League's top team fell on the short end at Montrose Park, losing, 12-1, in a game that was called in the bottom of the fourth inning because of the 10-run mercy rule.

Marshall Allen GLENDALE -- Whether people come to buy, sell, see, or dress up as angels, the winged servants of God are the sole agenda item at the eightth Angel Festival at the New Church of the New Jerusalem in La Crescenta. While people from all faith backgrounds attend, the festival's sponsors are inspired by their unique beliefs in angels, based on the teachings of 18th century Swedish philosopher, scientist and religious writer Emanuel Swedenborg.

Hamlet Nalbandyan TUJUNGA FIELD -- It was only a matter of time before the Kiwanis 11- and-12-year-old major baseball team got rolling Thursday. The Angels had held off the champions from the Foothill Little League for two innings, but a seeing-eye-single here and a blooper over short there added up to a nine-run third inning and a 10-0 victory for Kiwanis in a first-round contest of the District 16 Tri-Cities Championships at Tujunga Field. The game was called in the bottom of the fourth inning due to the 10-run mercy rule.

St. Luke's of the Mountains Anglican Church will host its annual Angel Breakfast on Saturday, Dec. 9, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. for children ages 2 to 8 years of age. St. Luke's of the Mountains will be visited by live angels. They will sing and tell the participants why they have so much Christmas joy. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles are encouraged to bring young children at 8:30 a.m. to enjoy all the angels during breakfast, craft, story and play times. "Having angels visit us is nothing short of heavenly," said Rebecca Marsh, director of Children's Ministries.

Lorraine Watkiss knew she was going to die. After beating cervical cancer, ovarian cancer, then having a malignant tumor removed from her groin — depriving her of her womanhood — the disease returned a fourth time, and she accepted her likely fate. She didn’t go down fighting; she was too physically weak, her widow John Watkiss said. Instead, she went down painting. For 80 days straight, Lorraine Watkiss painted variations of an angel, using a wide array of metallic, water-based paint to create images that John Watkiss says were inspired by a spiritual visitation his wife experienced.

Large inflatable Christmas characters dotting neighborhood lawns may be all the rage this year, but it's hard to beat real, live animals. The Parish Church of Saint Mark in Glendale celebrated its 15th annual live nativity scene Friday night, complete with a donkey, llama, baby pony and an assortment of goats and sheep surrounding volunteers acting out the roles of the famous Biblical story. "This is for everyone," said church administrator Elaine Loke. "We get a good crowd and we're happy to do it."

Glendale Memorial Hospital began its holiday season Monday with the start of the "Touched by an Angel" tree celebration. Handmade angels, donated by volunteers of the Guild of Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center, are available for purchase for $5 for people to honor loved ones. The angels will be sold through Jan. 6. Each angel will be hung on the hospital's Christmas tree in the main lobby. More than 200 angels were hung last year, hospital officials said, and they are hoping to sell 400 this year.

Alex Hausman and his four-year-old son, Theo, were walking across a shallow area of the Los Angeles River on Saturday morning when they spotted a child-sized mattress floating near the edge. When a few nearby volunteers saw the find, they lifted the dirty mattress out of the water and onto the pavement next to the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk. Later, it was hauled into a truck bed on top of a few other objects: a shopping cart, a suitcase and several bags of trash. Hausman was one of more than 100 volunteers who spent Saturday morning cleaning out a portion of the Los Angeles River that runs alongside the newly-completed riverwalk in Glendale.

Looking to jump start his career, Angel Rodriguez left Cal State Northridge for an opportunity to join the Glendale Community College baseball team. Rodriguez, who spent last season as a redshirt at CSUN, sought the chance to receive more individual attention while looking to improve his overall pitching skills. Turns out things worked fine for Rodriguez, who helped the Vaqueros win their third Western State Conference South Division championship in a row and was tabbed the division's pitcher of the year.

Thousands of pieces of high-end clothing stolen from Glendale stores were seized this week from the home of a 25-year-old Los Angeles man who police say was selling the items in Mexico. The man, Joel Peña, has been charged with three felony counts of burglary and three felony counts of grand theft in connection with stolen clothing, which police valued at roughly $19,000, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court records. Police say Peña was working with a theft ring to sell the clothes in Mexico, although they have yet to identify other members of the ring, said Glendale Police Sgt. Kevin Hirano.

In 2001, Former Mayor Frank Quintero approved changing the benefit factor that would allow safety personnel to retire after 30 years of service at age 50 with 90% of their last year of spiked income, rather than maintaining their existing generous 75% of their last year of spiked income at age 55. Quintero also voted to allow this benefit package to become retroactive to previous retired city employees. Quintero voted to allow city managers to form their own union (Glendale City Managers Association)

GLENDALE - Prior to his team's game against L.A. Mission on Tuesday, Glendale Community College baseball Coach Chris Cicuto expressed faith in starting pitcher Angel Rodriguez. That's quite the vote of confidence considering the 2013 Western State Conference South title was on the line. “Glad I was right,” Cicuto laughed, clearly enjoying Glendale's 4-1 victory against L.A. Mission at Stengel Field that gave the Vaqueros their third consecutive WSC South crown. Glendale improved to 24-10 overall, but more importantly 18-4 in conference, two games ahead of second-place Bakersfield with two games remaining.

It might be baseball season in Southern California, but there was no shortage of big basketball news this week, as the coach of one of the area's winningest programs switched schools to join a nearby program. Maranatha announced the hiring of Pasadena High School's longtime head coach Tim Tucker on Tuesday, the same day that Minutemen coach Tim Godley announced his resignation. Tucker led the Bulldogs to nine straight Pacific League championships and collected four CIF Southern Section titles both as a player and a coach, most recently in 2011-2012.

A Los Angeles man and woman have filed a federal lawsuit against the Glendale Police Department, alleging a wrongful search last year during a traffic stop that led to their arrest. David Thompson Boyd, 51, and Patricia Marie Hale, 52, claimed in a U.S. District Court lawsuit filed March 5 that they were stopped on their way to dinner on Aug. 31, 2012 in Glendale for unknown reasons, searched without probable cause, arrested and denied bail. The pair are representing themselves. “It went from simply going to have dinner to all of a sudden being Bonnie and Clyde,” Boyd said, adding that he wants to know why the traffic stop escalated to an arrest.

The motorist who was killed Monday after her vehicle careened off Angeles Crest Highway has been identified by coroner's officials as Montrose resident Maral Joulakian. An autopsy for Joulakian, 43, was still pending, according to Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman Ed Winter. County firefighters were called to the 32.2-mile mark of the highway about 1:45 p.m. after someone saw a vehicle leave the roadway, the L.A. Times reported. The cause of the accident, in which her car tumbled several hundred feet down a steep ravine, remained under investigation.

Files recently released by the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese show that 29 clergy accused of sexual abuse served assignments at local parishes, where some of the alleged child molestation took place. Of the 29 men who were named, eight were accused of committing sex abuse while assigned to local parishes in Burbank, La Cañada Flintridge, Pasadena, Montrose and La Crescenta . Of those eight priests, three - Leland Boyer, Lynn Caffoe and John Kohnke - are dead. The other 21 were either not assigned to local churches at the time of the allegation being made, or there were no files listed.