The Necessity of Mutual Love at the Lord’s Table

I’ve been reading through the Institutes recently where Calvin discusses the nature of the Lord’s Table (communion). To be honest, most of the material is pretty dry, but than I came across the following paragraph which knocked me off of my chair.


"We shall benefit very much from the Sacrament if this thought is impressed and engraved upon our minds: that none of the brethren can be injured, despised, rejected, abused, or in any way offended by us, without at the same time, injuring, despising, and abusing Christ by wrongs we do; that we cannot disagree with our brethren without at the same time disagreeing with Christ; that we cannot love Christ without loving him in the brethren; that we ought to take the same care of our brethren’s bodies as we take of our own; for they are members of our body; and that, as no part of our body is touched by any feeling of pain which is not spread among all the rest, so we ought not to allow a brother to be affected by any evil, without being touched with compassion for him." (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Chapter XVII, Section 38)