Flesh, meaning

The Temptation of Christ. Jesus explains that Satan also tempted him in the realm of the flesh. Ary Scheffer (1854).

In the Gospel and in the work of Maria Valtorta, the "flesh" represents the body. This term is also used when referring to the battle between the flesh and the spirit, the word flesh then representing the body weighed down by the bad evil instincts it has as a result of the Original Sin.

In "The Gospel as it was revealed to me"

• Jesus: "At the borders of your little kingdom, you have a King friend and two enemy powers. [...] The two enemy powers are Satan and the flesh."
• For I too have a flesh, friends. A real flesh. And it is subject to the same weaknesses experienced by all flesh.
• But the flesh is flesh, and Satan is the Temptation. And Temptation uses, to fight God in a heart and in His holy decrees, the flesh that excites man: the woman.  
• "Be contrary to the desire for gold as to the desire of the flesh; to carnal desire as to the desire for power. That is what Satan offers you. Oh! His deceptive riches! Honors, success, power, money: impure wares that you buy at the price of your soul. Be content with little. God gives you what is necessary. That is enough. This, He guarantees to you, as He guarantees to the bird of the air, and you are much more than birds. But He wants your trust and sobriety. If you trust, He will not disappoint you. If you are sober, His daily gift will suffice you."  
• To Nicodemus, the Sanhedrist who came to see Him secretly: "What is born of the flesh, is, and remains flesh, and dies after having served it in its desires and its sins. But what is born of the Spirit is spirit, and lives by returning to the Spirit that begot it, after making it grow to the age of perfection. The Kingdom of Heaven will only be inhabited by beings who have reached the perfect age of the spirit. Therefore, do not be surprised if I say: "You must be born again".    
• I too began with the flesh, but whereas Satan uses it to lead them to Hell, I used it to lead them to Heaven.
• Truly, truly I say to you, if you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of man and do not drink His Blood, you do not have life in you. Whoever eats my Flesh worthily and drinks my Blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the Last Day. () – Synagogue of Capernaum.          
• Since matter dominates especially among pagans, even converted ones, and they will always remain in connection with the environment in which they must live, insist strongly on fleeing sensual pleasures. It is through the senses that the rest also enters.
• Be holy in your members and your senses to know how to restrain every carnal urge. In your eyes as well as your ears, your tongue as well as your hands. And holy in your thought to know how to restrain the pride of showing what you have. For the senses and the organs and intellect must serve and not reign.
• And as for the flesh, do not imitate the people of the world who never cease to tremble for their tomorrow, for fear that they will lack the superfluous, that illness may come, that death may come, that their enemies may harm them, and so on.
  God knows what you need. So do not fear for your tomorrow. Free yourself from fears, heavier than the chains of galley slaves. Do not trouble yourself for your life, nor for food, nor for drink, nor for clothing.
  The life of the spirit is more than that of the body, and the body is more than clothing, for it is by the body and not by clothing that you live and, through the mortification of the body, you help the spirit to obtain eternal life. God knows how long He will leave your soul in your body, and until that moment He will give you what you need.
  And can you think that God, who cares for the lilies of the valleys and makes them grow and clothes them with a garment more beautiful than Solomon ever had, without their doing any other work than to perfume by worshiping, do you believe that He could forget you even for clothing? (...)
  But do not be people of little faith. You will always have what you need. Do not fret like people of the world who toil to provide for their pleasures.
  You have your Father who knows what you need. You must only seek, and let it be the first of your concerns, the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all the rest will be given to you besides.  

In other works of Maria Valtorta

The Notebooks of 1944

• Catechesis of August 8: "What horizons of divine knowledge can open to you by a single word of my Gospel! What mystery of perfect love and justice these expressions contain: "he grew strong" and "he increased"! You read without paying attention. Or you read and meditate, but by giving to what is transcendent the color of the human. The strength of your flesh is such that it dominates the intellectual forces of the spirit within you. This is what follows: knowledge is granted only to those who "have killed the flesh in themselves, its voices and violences, and founded on these ruins the throne of the spirit-king. It is granted to them both by the divine Word and by the divine infusion of an intelligence that is not far from perfection: it indeed proceeds from the Paraclete who, through a spiritual incarnation of the Word in you," souls virgins whose only desire is that of the nuptials eternal, "communicates Himself and engenders in you the Word, thus making you 'bearers of the Christ'," like "the virginal Spouse who bore His sevenfold ardors.

Lessons on the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans

• Lesson No. 23 - Romans 7:14-25: Powerlessness of the Law in the struggle between the flesh and the spirit.

In fundamental Christian texts

In the Bible

• " יהוה Elohîms transformed the rib he had taken from the man into a woman whom he brought to him. The man exclaimed: "This time this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman because she was taken from man." Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
• "I keep יהוה always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoices, my soul exults, and my flesh dwells in safety, for you do not abandon me to the grave, nor let your faithful one see corruption."
• "And you, who were dead because of your faults and the sins you were once involved in, when you followed the god of this world, the prince who stands between heaven and earth, the spirit now working in those who rebel… We were among them too, all of us who once abandoned ourselves to the desires of our flesh: we did its will, followed its impulses, and we were by nature, just like the others, subject to wrath.
• "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. For the law of the Spirit who gives life in Jesus Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death. When God sent his own Son in our human condition as sinners to conquer sin, he did what the law of Moses could not because of human weakness: he destroyed sin in the carnal man. He thus wanted the demands of the Law to be fulfilled in us, who do not live under the power of the flesh but of the Spirit. Indeed, under the power of the flesh, we tend towards what is fleshly; under the power of the Spirit, we tend towards what is spiritual; and the flesh tends to death, but the Spirit tends to life and peace. For the flesh rebels against God, it does not submit to God’s law, it is not even able to do so.
• "Listen to me: walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh; they are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, magic, hatreds, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, rivalries, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."