colecta

Colecta is a Spanish term with multiple uses, most commonly referring to a collection of money or goods and to a specific liturgical element in Christian worship. The word comes from Latin collecta, the feminine form of collectus, related to colligere, meaning to gather or bring together.

In everyday Spanish, a colecta denotes an act of gathering contributions from a group of people for a charitable, religious, or community purpose. It can be used for church fundraising drives, disaster-relief campaigns, food drives, or school or hospital collections. The phrase hacer una colecta means to organize or carry out such a collection, and the money or items collected are called the colecta.

In religious contexts, colecta has two related meanings. First, it can refer to the collection of offerings during a worship service, the money or donations given by the faithful to support the church or its charity programs. Second, it is used for the liturgical term oración colecta (the Collect), a short prayer said by the priest that gathers the intentions of the faithful and forms part of the liturgy in Catholic and some Protestant services.

The term is used in both singular and plural forms (colecta, colectas). While its primary sense is practical—fundraising—the religious sense connects to a formal, liturgical prayer as well as to the act of gathering offerings.