The Children of Mary of the Sacred Heart (French: Enfants de Marie du Sacré-Coeur) is a Catholic sodality founded by Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat in Lyon, France in 1823 (some older sources say 1818, but their archivist says 1823). It has also been referred to as the "Association of the Children of Mary," the "Congregation of the Children of Mary," the "Children of Mary Sodality," and by their French name, Enfants de Marie, often abbreviated E. de M. Although groups run currently in the United States and Canada, this page refers primarily to the history before 1900.

Madeleine Sophie Barat (12 December 1779 – 25 May 1865) established this lay women's group eighteen years after the original Society of the Sacred Heart, the congregation of nuns that she founded in 1800. It is a sodality, from the Latin sodalis, meaning member or companion. She used the term to describe an association of lay people who met for a religious purpose, similar to a confraternity, in this case to join themselves to her and her sisters, and "act in the world in our stead."

Ladies, it belongs to you to accomplish what we in our houses cannot do. We have enrolled you in a holy phalanx with the hope that you will act in the world in our stead, and by your example become apostles and win souls to our Lord.

St. Madeleine Sophie Barat to the first group in Lyon, 1823.

Jesuit Father Joseph Varin, SJ, who had helped her write the Constitution of the RSCJ in 1815, also drew up the rules for the Children of Mary. Barat and Varin mostly enrolled students from the schools. Mother Alice Power referred to them in her history of the sodality as "the most fervent of the elder girls," but other women could also join by invitation. Their emblem was a lily, and their motto was "Semper Fidelis." They designed their medal using a line from written by a member, Rose de Joigny: Cor meum jungatur vobis (my heart is united to you). The flip side (with Mary on it) said "Marie a été conçue sans péché" (Mary was conceived without sin). An alternate version had Latin on the side with Mary, "Maria sine labe originali concepta," and the same meaning.

Mother Barat founded a second group in 1832, known as the "Congregation of the Children of Mary." This time she worked with Father Julian Druilhet, SJ, Provincial of the French Jesuits, who drew up rules. Barat and Druilhet chose the original members, as in the first group, from seniors in the schools who wanted to continue their association after graduation, and other interested women. Mother Barat placed this new association under the patronage of the current archbishop, because it had not yet been authorized by Rome. However, she soon received that authorization, and she established its constitutions so that they would be consistent throughout the Society for religious and lay women alike. She wrote to these women,

Your mission is a very high one, and I do not fear to call it an apostolate, for you are to act as apostles in the midst of a perverse world. You must lead into the right path those who are wandering from it, encourage those kept back by human respect, and stop the downward course of those in danger.

These sodalities grew, and soon most major cities in continental Europe had one, each connected to its respective convent of the Sacred Heart. They also expanded throughout the Americas, and, in the words of Mother Power,