Maronites (Arabic: الموارنة‎; al-mawārinah, Syriac: ܡܪ̈ܘܢܝܐ; maronāyé) are a 'Pre-Arab' Semitic Christian ethnoreligious group in the Levant. They derive their name from the Syriac saint Mar Maron whose followers moved to Mount Lebanon from northern Syria establishing the Maronite Church.

The Maronite were able to maintain an independent status in Greater Syria after the Arab Islamic conquest, maintaining their religion and language until the 13th century.

The Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate and later the Republic of Lebanon were created under the auspice of European powers with the Maronites as their main ethnic component. Mass immigration to the Americas at the wake of the 20th century and the Lebanese Civil War decreased their numbers greatly in the Levant. The Maronites today form less than one quarter of the total population in the country of Lebanon.

A number of Maronite historians claim that the Maronites were the descendants of the Canaanite/Phoenician Marada (ܡܪܕܐ), residents in parts of Greater Syria, who kept their identity under both Byzantine and Arab authorities. The reason for their adoption of the name is disputed and historian disagree whether this is attributed to Mar Maron, a 4th century Syriac Christian saint, or to John Maron, the first bishop of Lebanon.

The Sacred Heart (also known as Most Sacred Heart of Jesus) is one of the most famous religious devotions to Jesus' physical heart as the representation of his divine love for humanity.

This devotion is predominantly used in the Catholic Church and among some high-church Anglicans and Lutherans. The devotion especially emphasizes the unmitigated love, compassion, and long-suffering of the heart of Christ towards humanity. The origin of this devotion in its modern form is derived from a French Roman Catholic nun, Marguerite Marie Alacoque, who said she learned the devotion from Jesus during a mystical experience. Predecessors to the modern devotion arose unmistakably in the Middle Ages in various facets of Catholic mysticism.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, the Sacred Heart has been closely associated with Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ. In his encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor, Pope Pius XI stated: "the spirit of expiation or reparation has always had the first and foremost place in the worship given to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus". The Golden Arrow Prayer directly refers to the Sacred Heart.