What is caritas?

[Kaesekopf]

In day to day life, we often hear of being charitable to one another. 

How do you see caritas — when it comes to our day to day interactions with fellow Catholics?

[·]

Charity is friendship and that is probably a very significant answer if I read your question correctly. (ST II-II Q 23 A 1).

Charity for us, towards each other, is to do good to others. (ST II-II Q 31 A 1).

As it is written: To love our neighbour as ourselves means to wish him and do him, as far as possible, the good which we ought to wish for ourselves, and not to wish or to do him any evil. (Catechism of Pius X)

Much of this can be interior acts that nobody sees, and I do not generally discuss interior acts with others. The specific works of mercy, corporal and spiritual, are not generally the most common acts of Charity, but we should always be mindful of them for when the opportunities arise and to avoid being a scandal to others.

Giving alms to those in need, correcting errors in fraternal correction, and some interior acts of Charity such as mercy, are not a day to day thing for most people. They require more specific circumstances in comparison to Beneficence and Affability.

I see charity as primarily being towards God, which is always present and never circumstantial.  This is the most significant day to day aspect of Charity and it is where Charity for others come from. Charity comes from God, not from us. This was not in your question, but if this is overlooked, we cannot have Charity at all.

[Kaesekopf]

I appreciate DI's input! 

But others should chime in as well.  Pretty please?...

[Julio]

First things first, the correct adoration to God. The right worship shall bring good fruits and charity shall flow naturally from it. I am stating this because many from those who call themselves Catholics claim that by being good to other people, and charity is among them, is the fulfillment of obedience to His will. In fact this is the way this recent human Catholic leadership would convey Catholicism to the public.

Charity as an expression of God and His love is not all to attain salvation. It is secondary to the correct worship to Him. Humans cannot assume that to be good is the reason of being in heaven. The mercy of God is the reason one can be in heaven and charity as character is just in keeping with proper adoration of God and obedience to the teachings of Lord Jesus. Anyone who thinks that to be in heaven is by being good and by being charitable at the expense of adoring the Holy Trinity and the one God is committing the sin of pride.

[diaduit]

My day to day interaction with trads and non trads has become extremely strained since Covid and it is hard to know how and when to be charitable and when to walk away or shoot with both barrels (metaphorically speaking of course). 

God calls me to be charitable ...... how do you do this day to day without being a doormat.

[james03]

I think the strongest example would be someone politely correcting someone else who is doing something wrong.  That's because this person is risking a hardship, some sort of confrontation, in order to actually help the other.  How to see it?  I think it is hard to discern.  Suppose some nag castigates a young couple with small kids and a toddler at Mass.  Correction is best done in private, so you won't see it most of the time.

Helping others is a good display of charity.  Wanting to spend time with people is another.

[Acolyte]

It's a virtue I need to work on. That's all I got right now.

ETA: From the back page of a Three Hail Marys leaflet..
'' the greatest charity we can show our neighbors is to help them save their souls"

[andy]

Good question. Took me a while to come to this:

For me personally, it caritas is catering to someone who is truly in a need of some sort. Figuratively speaking, it is receiving a weakness other person and treat it as my own without a single hint that own particular interest. In fact being able to sacrifice own time or material resources without any expectation to get something in return.

[Michael Wilson]

In every day inter-action with people around us, especially our family members, try to be kind and patient even when inside you may be feeling contrary inclinations. A warm smile, a kind word, go very far in keeping peace in our home. Letting an argument go; this is something I have to remember in the family; not saying the "witti" remark, which I frequently do, if I think it might irritate the other. Listening patiently to someone who has to get their complaint off their chest, or just tell the same boring story that they have told before a few times.Not interrupting someone in the family conversation, so that we can tell our much more interesting anecdote. 
Pray especially for those that we have an antipathy for or that we suspect they have one for us. 

[Julio]

^^Truly, charity begins at home.

[Acolyte]

"All spiritual writers admit three phases in this development of charity :
 
(1) that of beginners whose main effort is strife against sin. For this reason, it is called the purgative way.

(2) that of those who are making progress in the virtues by the light of faith and of contemplation. It is often called the illuminative way.

(3) that of The perfect, who live especially in Union with God through charity. It is called the unitive way.

These three degrees constitute the infancy, adolescence, and adult age of the spiritual life."

From Garrigou-Lagrange's Christian Perfection and Contemplation.

Would starting a conversation with a fellow Catholic about Charity and mentioning the above be an act of Charity ?

[clau clau]

A private power yacht constructed in 1922 for sugar magnate J. Percy Bartram.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caritas_(yacht)

 

[Miriam_M]

In day to day life, we often hear of being charitable to one another. 

How do you see caritas — when it comes to our day to day interactions with fellow Catholics?

The Institute priests have preached and taught often on this topic.  It is the third theological virtue.  We cannot grow in love of neighbor -- or, more properly, love of neighbor for the sake of God -- if we have insufficient love of God Himself.  That comes only through grace.

One of the greatest theological errors arising from "the spirit of V2" was the unapproved subversion of divine charity into primarily and even exclusively human charity.  (Worse when it was subverted into a kind of communism, wrongly called "social justice," clothed in Catholicism.)

The modernists Cardinals, bishops, and priests preach that charity begins on the human level.  Wrong.  And how we should know that is how we experience that.  "I" cannot love even close to the effectiveness and purity with which God loves.  It is why a well-disposed Mass attendance and well-disposed reception of HC makes all the difference in human charity -- because it flows directly from our reception of graces.  Love flows through us, not from us.  The more we are emptied of self, through the sacraments, the more we become an instrument of charity.

There's actually nothing to "think about" or "strive" to do when we receive correctly because charity flows naturally outward -- to our fellow Catholics and non-Catholics.