The quest for organ donors: a theological response.

A study of God's creation, redemption, and salvation of the human community may provide an answer to the shortage of organs for transplantation. An exploration of these areas from a theological viewpoint leads to a conclusion that: 1. We belong to one another. 2. We owe others our organs when they can benefit from them and we no longer can. When Jesus said, "This is my body" and "This is my blood which will be given up for you," he handed over his body to the community. These words should be understood in a continuum with his giving up his life, his sacrifice on the cross. Thus, when he said, "Do this in commemoration of me," he meant not only that we should remember the sacrifice in a liturgical fashion but also that we should pattern our lives after his. Could it be that the eucharistic injunction can also mean, in our day, that we are to give our bodies to the community in the same way that Christ gives his to us in the Eucharist? Should organ donation be seen not only in a secular fashion, as an optional good deed, but also as a profoundly religious, even sacramental, extension of the eucharistic sacrifice itself? Just as Christians are one in Christ's body, they belong to one another in a physical sense. If Christ is the one body and we belong to Christ, then we also belong to one another--and are obliged to donate our organs to one another.