God is the One of whom it can be said, that the more powerfully he activates an individual, and the more completely he penetrates his being, the more clearly that individual attains his own inherent personality.... all that I am, I am through him. The more intensively he directs his creative powers upon me, the more real I become. The more he gives me of his love, the fuller my self-realization in that love.... Not until he inhabits me, do I become the being God meant me to be.
Guardini, "The Lord", page 529
In the middle of the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas wrote:
As wisdom increases, and the subtle fragrance of holiness makes its unobtrusive way into the least crevices of the hours of a man's day, more and more hearts go out to him; he is a better man, a more lovable man, for he is more of a man. There is more to him, he is fuller, bigger; more of his powers have been put to work in completing the image of God within him. On the same count, every step downward a man takes in vice the more isolated he becomes.
Aquinas, "My Way of Life (Pocket Edition of St. Thomas)", p 9
My perception is that these two quotes are about the same concept, and I happened to read them within a day or two of each other! They are so close, that on the very next page, Guardini talks about the living Christ present in each baptized Christian (the same idea as St. Thomas' "image of God within him").
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