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Very clearly, the Lord’s Supper is to bring us into remembrance.

This is the standard Protestant response, if I may -- not to take anything away from it.

The problem is that Protestants typically do not appreciate--per Scripture--that the bread and wine is a sacrifice. The sacrificial nature of the Mass is what seems to be missed. But that is the whole point! That is the whole meaning of salvation history!

David Currie, in Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic points out a passage that has stumped the Evangelicals:

Zech. 14:20, 21:
On that day...all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them..

The problem is this: If Jesus' sacrifice is final and complete, no sacrifices should be needed in Jerusalem after the death and Resurrection of Jesus. Right? Yet there is the verse, plain as day, for which there is "no plausible Evangelical explanation," says Curie (p. 45).

If priesthood is no longer needed here on earth, because the need for sacrifices have ended, as Evangelicals argue, then Zechariah would not contain that verse. And yet there it is. The Evangelical perspective does not have an answer. But the Catholic Church does have a Scripture-based answer to that problem.

The answer is simple: Zechariah is referring to the Eucharist! Yes, the Eucharist is foretold in the Old Testament.

Karl Keating, in Catholicism and Fundamentalism, pulls out another problematic verse for Protestants:

Psalm 110:4:
The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

The very meaning of "priest" is one who offers a sacrifice. And who is this Melchizedek character? He is from Genesis 14:18 -- a priest encountered by Abraham. And what does he offer Abraham? Bread and wine!

Now when did Jesus offer bread and wine as a sacrifice? Obviously, the Last Supper. The logical conclusion: the Last Supper is instituted by Christ as a sacrifice. This is what the Catholics celebrate during the Mass, which is why it is called "The Sacrifice of the Mass."

Within this sacrificial Biblical context, your question can be addressed.

In 1 Corinthians 11:24-25, indeed, Jesus says during the Last Supper, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." But "remembrance" as it is used here does not have quite the meaning you import into it, when understood in context.

In the Greek, this word for "remembrance" has a special connotation. It is used only one other time in the New Testament, in Hebrews 1:3. In this verse, the remembrance is an act of carrying out a sacrifice. "Those sacrifices are an annual reminder [remembrance] of sins." In the OT, the word is only used twice. Each time the word is used it is in reference to a sacrifice! In Lev. 24:7, "Put some incense as a memorial..to be an offering," and in Nb 10:10, "Sound the trumpets over your burn offerings and fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you."

And so, understood in the context of the entire Scriptures as a whole, we can see that this word for "remembrance" is not just about thinking about the past and bringing it to mind. The term has strong sacrificial overtones, and has to do with remembering an event by participating in a sacrifice.

The same idea of remembrance, by the way, can be found in pagan cultures. In Haitian Voodoo, for example, the priest sacrifices an animal, or plants, to the ancestors, in order to remember them. If the ancestor is not remembered with a sacrifice, they are haunted by the ghost of the ancestor who brings bad luck. This notion of remembering via sacrifice is quite common throughout the world, across cultures, and anticipates but falls short of the one true sacrifice of Christ. Christ's sacrifice replaces the necessity of pagan sacrifices, as much as it replaces the sacrifices of the monotheistic Jews.

At Mass, Christ is remembered through the sacrifice which is the Eucharist in which his real presence resides. In the sacrifice of the Mass, the bread is changed into the substance of Chirst's Body, and this occurs by way of a miracle of God. The appearance of the bread and wine remain with all their usual properties. The substance changes, but not the appearance.

Why this sacrifice? I will refer you, first, to the links to the articles by Scott Hahn, which you can find in a prior post of mine, above. The Lord sacrifices his only Son because no other sacrifice can repair the damage done by original sin in the Garden. And in Revelations, John tells us that Christ continues to persist in the form of the slain lamb, always and forever, a perpetual sacrifice -- a key aspect of Christ's role in the Trinity. And whenever a Mass occurs, that perpetual sacrifice is made manifest again on earth -- which, as in Revelations, is celebrated with joy, for this is the sacrifice that breaks the seal. The only sacrifice that could break the seal.

Of course this is all revealed in Scripture! But the testimony of the early Church Fathers validates it without a shadow of a doubt.

God bless.

"At Mass, Christ is remembered through the sacrifice which is the Eucharist in which his real presence resides. In the sacrifice of the Mass, the bread is changed into the substance of Chirst's Body, and this occurs by way of a miracle of God. The appearance of the bread and wine remain with all their usual properties. The substance changes, but not the appearance.
Why this sacrifice? I will refer you, first, to the links to the articles by Scott Hahn, which you can find in a prior post of mine, above. The Lord sacrifices his only Son because no other sacrifice can repair the damage done by original sin in the Garden. And in Revelations, John tells us that Christ continues to persist in the form of the slain lamb, always and forever, a perpetual sacrifice -- a key aspect of Christ's role in the Trinity. And whenever a Mass occurs, that perpetual sacrifice is made manifest again on earth -- which, as in Revelations, is celebrated with joy, for this is the sacrifice that breaks the seal. The only sacrifice that could break the seal."

Hebrews 10:

10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.