Don’t take a bath on Good Friday, or bad things will happen to you. Same with playing with any sharp objects, especially deadly weapons.
Also, avoid haircuts, cutting fingernails or climbing trees because wounds sustained on Good Friday -- no matter how superficial -- will take a long time to heal.
Never ever leave the house on both Holy Thursday and Good Friday because bad spirits roam around to harm people, especially kids.
Jumping on early Easter Sunday morning will make you taller. And when church bells ring on Easter Sunday, make sure you shout at the top of your voice so you’ll have a long life.
These, among other folk beliefs, are still widely observed during Easter in both rural and urban communities in many parts of the Philippines, according to a group of Palawan university students who did research on the topic.
Like, for example, the Good Friday practices of preparing coconut oil (believed to be good for healing purposes) and not eating any kind of meat (“so as not to offend the suffering Christ”).
Or not taking a nap during the entire Good Friday afternoon, or before, during and after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
In the book “Why do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday? (The Catholic Origin to Just About Everything),” Baylor University professor Michael Foley speaks of religious objects, devotions and actions “that permeate the life of the practicing Catholic.”
“A number of these phenomena came about through bizarre twists of history, such as the convergence of pagan, Catholic and anti-Catholic customs that shape our contemporary observance of Halloween. Others are the result of a long process of secularization,” Foley says.
According to Foley, “while there are a number of explicitly Catholic superstitions around today, it is surprising to learn that many of the most common ones in our society today are ones that long predate Christianity.”
He said that Good Friday, the day Christ died, “has always been shrouded in sorrow and penance.” “It is most likely this fact, coupled with the penitential character of Friday, that accounts for its reputation as the unluckiest day of the week. Beginning anything on Friday -- be it a new job, a voyage or a journey -- was considered bad luck, as was moving, courting, getting married or being born on that day,” according to Foley.
Friday the 13th was “considered especially unlucky because it joins the day of Christ’s passion with the number of Christ and his 12 disciples, one of whom was the traitor Judas Iscariot.”
On abstaining from eating “flesh meat,” Foley said “this act is, according to canon law, a sign of penance on the day of our Lord’s crucifixion. It also aptly symbolizes a rejection of carnality.”
He says: “Fish would be an exception to this rule because of its symbolic association with Christ and the Eucharist.”
Here in T&T and the Caribbean some traditions include the making of a Good Friday bobolee, an effigy of Judas Iscariot which is traditionally hung in a public place and beaten.
The bobolee is not, however, the weirdest Caribbean Easter tradition: that distinction would have to belong to the Good Friday prohibition against sea-bathing, because you would turn into a fish. Also the breaking a fresh egg out in the sun at precisely midday whatever shape the eggs form is your destiny for the coming year. Eg. a ship or anything resembling a boat means you going away.
Another great Caribbean Easter tradition — food. There are the hot cross buns, a hearty Good Friday lunch of provisions and fish or salted fish.
