The most meaningful religious holiday for me doesn’t involve a fat, jolly man sliding down a chimney, or a life-size rabbit hiding baskets of jellybeans. It’s a feast that usually gets overshadowed by Memorial Day picnics and graduation parties.

The Pentecost (Greek for “the fiftieth day”–after Easter, that is) is the birthday of the Church, the liturgical feast on which Christians celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. It’s the day that the disciples (although scared) went forth to proclaim the message of Jesus to the world.

I love the feast because its message is so central to my recovery: get over your fear, and get out into the world. Plus, I can always use this reminder: God (a.k.a. the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, or whatever you want to call it) is always with you, guiding you every step of the way. Even if you can’t see anything that resembles a man in a robe or a dove.

In second grade, a priest explained the concept of the Holy Spirit to us this way. He sat down in one chair. And a second-grader-teacher’s-pet-type sat down in the chair across from him.

“Imagine that I’m the father. And this here (pointing to the goody-two-shoes kid) is my son. If we begin to talk to each other, the conversation between us is the Holy Spirit.” (I wish my theology professors explained the Holy Trinity in those terms. My papers would have been easier to write.)

I’ve often thought of that analogy as I’m sitting in a support group with a cup of really bad coffee, and someone across the room says something that brings me peace, or alerts me to something I need to confront (I hate that), or makes me feel less alone. That’s the Pentecost phenomenon. The dove (or whatever form the Holy Spirit takes, much like the Wonder Twins superheroes) descends and drops little scarlet and golden bulbs of fire over our heads that empower us to do the difficult thing that we don’t want to do, but that will ultimately bring us health and sanity.

Almost every day that I log onto Beyond Blue, I experience a Pentecost moment–a holy exchange of sorts that confirms for me that Jesus really did mean it when he said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matt. 18:20).

I really need that bulb of courage (the flame over my head courtesy of the H.S.) that support groups give me–or, more accurately, that God gives me when I participate in support groups. Because I am scared so much of the time, just like the disciples were, after Jesus ascended into heaven (with no detailed blueprint for them follow) and they gathered together to come up with a game plan.

And so I often babble like an idiot, just like the apostles did before the Holy Spirit gave them the ability to speak in foreign languages, and to communicate Jesus’ message to different nations.

In Acts 2:1-4, we read this:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

I don’t think I can find a more powerful example of a support group in the Bible. Which is why I’d take the Pentecost over Santa or the Easter Bunny any day.