The Good of Good Friday
Today is Good Friday, the commemoration of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, an odd event to call "good." Relatedly, yesterday I mentioned that Aldi's knock-off version of Cool Ranch Doritos are "god-awful" (and they are, believe me). Why should we intone a presumably benevolent God as an intensifier for "awful" while we describe the political execution of his son as good?
In the case of the former, there's unreliable linguistic evidence that "god-awful" comes from a time when "God" was used as an intensifier meaning "very," but there are few examples of that logic being used elsewhere. We may say "God, that's good!" if we're enjoying a pie or a Truffaut movie but we don't say "That's god-good!" The other, more guilt-laden, explanation behind "god-awful" is that the god-awful thing itself is awful by divine decree, just as a god-forsaken thing or place has been abandoned by any holy entity. If this is the case, according to my Catholic Catechism, I have blasphemed by saying Aldi's snack foods are god-awful, substituting my own judgement and presuming it is God's (though I can guarantee He'd agree with me—they're terrible).
As far as Good Friday goes, it always made sense to my impressionable Catholic school mind that we call it "good" because Jesus couldn't very well come back from the dead and save our souls if he wasn't dead in the first place so the act of his murder, as terrible as it was, is ultimately good. But no, that may be a pleasing contextualization of the current name but it's not its origin. Nor does Good Friday come from a form of God's Friday, which even the Catholic Dictionary suggests may be the case. Despite being linguistically tempting, there is no etymological connection between the English words "God" and "good." The theory is that the German phrase for Good Friday, Gottes Freitag, meaning God's Friday, eventually became Good Friday in English. The problem with this is that German's don't call Good Friday Gottes Freitag, they call it Karfreitag, which means "Sorrowful Friday," which checks more with the tone Christians take on that day. No, the name comes from one of the original definitions of the word "good" which didn't just mean something that was competent or desirable, but also that it was holy or sacred. This not only jibes with other days of Holy Week (Holy Wednesday, Holy Thursday and so on) but with other Romance languages (Good Friday is Viernes Santo in Spanish, Le Vendreti Saint in French, meaning Holy or Sacred Friday).
Holy Week services will be different this year, of course, just as Passover gatherings (which started on Wednesday) have been and Ramadan observances (which start on April 23) will be. There is some irony in Lent coming to an end during a global quarantine, seeing as the word quarantine means "40 days." Early public health officials told people to stay inside for 40 days because it seemed like a long enough time to let a disease run its course and it had the added spiritual benefit of being a number mentioned in the Bible for its purification qualities. Noah's flood lasted 40 days, the Israelite's wandered the desert for 40 years and, of course, Christ's Lenten trial lasted 40 days.
One of the comforting things about being Catholic, a religion in which "comfort" is not one of its top qualities, is that even while things change, they stay the same. There is a reassurance in knowing that the Pope's live streamed mass on Sunday morning will be much the same as the one happening at the Catholic church down the street which is much the same as the one happening in a country church in Burundi. Furthermore, the actions and movements of these services in 2020 are close to what they have been when Pope Alexander VII gave mass during the plague of 1665. Even if you are not Catholic or religious, you are probably familiar with them. The Hokey Pokey, known to children everywhere, originated as a way of making fun of the Liturgy of the Eucharist section of a Catholic mass, when the priest prepares and presents the bread and wine. If you watch it closely, the priest does in fact put his right arm in and and take his right arm out and so on (the amount of shaking all about depends on his age). The name Hokey Pokey is taken from "Hoc est enim corpus meum" which means "This is my body" and is a central part of the liturgy.
I'm sure about now you're wondering what any of this has to do with a bunny. Strictly speaking, the Easter Bunny is a hare and is a fairly recent American invention, presumably created so that WASPs could have something to get a picture with during Easter brunch that wasn't an unsightly crucifix. The basket-carrying nightmare machine may be recent but it's inspiration is much older. To ancient Saxons, the hare was sacred to Eostre, the goddess of spring and the origin of the word Easter. I certainly hope you have a good one this weekend.