Caritas is a Latin word meaning "love."

As used in scripture, it simply means "love", as in, Deus caritas est, "God is love."  1 John 4:8.  

In some versions of scripture, the word is translated into English as "charity" or sometimes simply as "God's love."

St. Thomas Aquinas understood it to mean "the friendship of man for God," the most excellent of virtues, in accord with 1 Cor 13:13 ("..but the greatest of these is love").  

Now in the middle of Ordinary Time, Easter feels like a distant memory and Advent is not yet on the horizon. Ordinary Time, however, is anything but ordinary. In addition to the feasts and memorials sprinkled throughout Ordinary Time in the liturgical calendar, if we pay attention to the readings we find the calling of the apostles, Jesus teaching his disciples.