Is there anything you miss about the Catholic Church?

This question prompted by my discussion with my mom today that I did not want her to send money to people to pray for her because she was losing her hair. Stop laughing, I am serious. A novena (as well as I can remember is like a prayer cluster) and you don't have to pay for it but usually when you request it there is a "donation" envelope involved. I had no idea how angry I was at the Church and the lies that I had been told growing up. Correction, not lies, really no information at all. Being born in the Bronx, aka "little Italy", my family is the epitome of Catholicism. My brothers were altar boys, we all went to parochial school ( fancy name for church or private) and mass was a constant in our lives. Along of course with confession which now they call something more "user friendly". I saw the term on my mom's catholic newsletter today and can't remember what it is but at the time I thougth what the....? Anyway, I was a child in confession A LOT because I never felt like I measured up and just "hoping" that I got to heaven seemed more than a little unreliable. So, I never read the Bible, never prayed to anyone other than a priest, and was very frightenend of what I believed to be an angry, wrathful, omnipotent God. I never prayed unless someone "led" me and then I just bowed my head and closed my eyes while we prayed for world peace or the upcoming church festival instead of intimate, personal needs and fears and desires that only God can handle. So today when my mom wanted prayer for her hair....all of that just kind of came spewing out of my mouth. Not the Christian thing for me to do and something that I am not proud of as my mom is a deeply spiritual woman who clings to her faith. Now I had the privilege of leading my mom to the Lord months back but Catholicism is something that never goes away. Those teachings are deeply ingrained in your and it is hard to turn lose. I still suffer from "spiritual guilt" which was something I was taught in Catholic school. Some people find comfort in the ritual of it. Not me. So after another outburst in which I declared that there was no such thing as purgatory (after all, I was on a roll)and she needed no one but Jesus to get to God and that the Church had lied to me my whole life she said, " Is there anything you miss about the Catholic church?" And I adamantly said NOT ONE THING!! She looked shaken at that and more than a little sad. How can she still cling to a religion that doesn't even know that she exists. She sat faithfully in the same pew for 30+ years and gave financially and NO ONE comes to see her. No one knows who she is or that she is there. How can that be? Am I angry because of what they did to me or to what they are doing to her? She is hurt and it makes me angry. We are to love one another and more so the widows and the children. She is 87 and faithfully keeps up with church news, with the bulletin and still receives those novenas that offer to pray for her "for free" with a donation envelope included. Yet, they do not know who she is. They don't come and offer her the sacraments that they believe are vital to one going to heaven. So, it is like she is forgotten by her faith. Is there anything I miss about the Catholic church? I miss that I missed out. That I never knew that I could get to heaven without a priest. I miss that I had to wait 36 years to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I miss.....I miss my mom. She is still here but the years have not been kind to her physically. She is so sharp mentally but even that is starting to fail. I love her and feel bad that I may have inadvertenly hurt her today. But I know this I do not miss being a Catholic and all that goes with it. And as for her hair, I am going to buy her vitamins.